Lyrics to "The Peat Bog Soldiers" song by The Dubliners: Far and wide as the eye can wander, Heath and bog are everywhere. Not a bird sings out to cheer us.
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- Origins and Premiere
They related it to their own situation, to their never-changing camp routine, the boring guard duty, the difficult drills, the strict exercises, and the isolation of the camp in the desolate landscape of Emsland. Because the song did not posses any explicit or direct political component, even the guards could identify with some parts of it. Some of the SS asked for a copy of the song and the most affable amongst them even received one. Other guards felt provoked by the song, which led to some confrontations between them and the guards who had reacted positively.
Yet we cannot be entirely certain exactly when he issued the ban. Wolfgang Langhoff and Karl Schabrod, for example, stated that it happened two days after the premiere, on Tuesday, 29 August Still, the prisoners retained it as a concentrated expression of their will to resist and as a symbol of their solidarity. They also took various steps to make sure that the song became known throughout the camp. In the woodworking shop we cut off pieces of wood and wrote the verses on them, on these pieces of wood.
This was done by prisoners to express their protest and to cheer each other up, or to give the newcomers a friendly greeting. In addition, it was regularly sung as the finale to various cultural events. Junge says that one day the prisoners began singing it to let the commandant know that the SS had held them in the moor longer than ordered. We gathered at the place where he [the commandant] stayed and we began to sing the song of the moor. This time we sang the melody even stronger. The commandant woke up at once, came out and started to yell at us. Then the SS started beating us.
Though it is an accessible song, the music and the lyrics do contain some surprises. It speaks of the harshness and monotony of land cultivation with only simple tools — one of the most strenuous forms of forced labour. It describes the never-changing daily routine, the difficult conditions of imprisonment, and the painful longing for family and freedom. The three notes that are repeated at the beginning stand for the desolateness of the camp.
This structure can also be found in folk songs. The name comes from the fact that the spades they carried on their shoulders looked like rifles. The lyrics are descriptive and easy to follow and express the situation of the prisoners in their own simple language. Even the last stanza can be understood in multiple ways. It still was the first song and it became the real concentration camp song. It begins with a jump of a sixth that has an emotional and dramatic effect. A variation in the lyrics and music in the last refrain serves to express the certitude that freedom will eventually come something entirely realistic at this point and that the fight against the Nazis will continue.
This simple but effective variation dramatically symbolizes the protest, the will to survive, and the resistance of the political prisoners.
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Through this modulation between the minor and parallel major scale, the song appears simultaneously melancholic and hopeful. Indeed, by the finale it is demanding, even defiant. This stomping on the boards was also common in other camps. Released prisoners also relayed the story of the song to others in the Ruhr area. Prisoner transfers spread the song still further to other camps and detention centers.
It eventually found its way into numerous handwritten concentration camp song books. Despite the drastic changes to the concentration camp system in the intervening period, Geve and his comrades took up this old camp song because its message had remained salient. In doing so, they sought to create a conscious bridge to the older concentration camps.
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Now youthful voices from all across Europe give it new life. As the most popular German concentration camp song, it was also heard in other Nazi camps and detention centers, thereby developing into a prototype for future camp songs.
These later songs were either composed with entirely new music or performed as a variation on the original. These camps were later transformed into Nazi penal camps and P. Numerous examples of these were heard in later concentration camps because the prisoners of the penal camps were often sent to a concentration camp after their release.
"The Peat Bog Soldiers" lyrics
Cyprien, comes from Rieucros in March He was making records in a studio with Ernst Busch, a fellow exile and singer of proletarian songs. He gave us the lyrics and tried to sing the melody for us as it had been sung by the concentration camp prisoners. He had to sing the song over and over again, but it was never quite right, so Eisler picked out a melody himself on the piano.
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- Peat Bog Soldiers;
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Busch remembers that it was not only the incomplete melody that made he and Eisler decide to make some changes: Even today one hears our arrangement. Why did five thousand proletarians, who did not have time for the study of poetry or music, decide to create this song? He also replaced the characteristic repetition of notes at the beginning with a jump of a fourth. This song was in fact written much later.
This myth, continuing into the present, has separated the song from its original meaning. But depending on the disposition of the local commandant or the sentimentality of individual guards, it was also tolerated or even permitted to be performed in larger groups. Outside the barbed wire and camp walls, the song was strictly prohibited in Germany. The situation was different for those living in foreign countries, where German exiles could distribute it without any hindrances. Indeed, just a few weeks after its premiere, the song was apparently broadcast by Radio Moscow. By the lyrics had been published in various press organs.
Radio Prague also broadcast a vocal version of the song.
Unpolitscher Tatsachenbericht The Moor Soldiers: A Nonpolitical Report of the Facts. In April , the St. Galler Tagblatt The St. Of course the song became world famous in the version by Hanns Eisler.
Eisler himself brought his arrangement of this song to America, where he gave a benefit concert for the victims of Nazi crimes in the same year. He traveled in from the Netherlands to the Soviet Union, where he made the first recordings of this song. In addition, Busch sang it quite often on the radio and at concerts. It was broadcast through the international radio station Later reprinted in America, these recordings are today very famous, though they only contain verses 1, 5, and 6. After leaving Spain, Busch founded a singing club in Antwerp.
In , Busch once again recorded the song, this time in Paris.
Peat Bog Soldiers - Wikipedia
It was only during the Spanish Civil War that this song became internationally known. From that point on, it could be heard in even more languages. After , most of the concentration camp songs were forgotten or, in the best case scenario, continued to be sung by a few surviving prisoners. It did so by enabling the East German government to claim an unbroken cultural chain between the communist resistance and the contemporary socialist government.
That is, if they had heard of it at all. In West Germany, it was primarily maintained by surviving antifascists and former prisoners. After the liberation of the camps, the song was used to memorialise murdered comrades.
Origins and Premiere
Later it was once again sung at meetings of former prisoners and is still sung today as a regular part of the memorial rituals held at former concentration camps. In the late s as part of the folk revival, it found new, younger listeners. Eichen stehen kahl und krumm. Auf und nieder geh'n die Posten, keiner, keiner kann hindurch. Heimat du bist wieder mein. Far and wide as the eye can wander, Heath and bog are everywhere. Not a bird sings out to cheer us. Oaks are standing gaunt and bare. Up and down the guards are marching, No one, no one can get through. Flight would mean a sure death facing, Guns and barbed wire block our view.
But for us there is no complaining, Winter will in time be past. One day we shall rise rejoicing. Homeland, dear, you're mine at last. Wherever the eye gazes Bog and heath all around No chirping of birds entertains us Oaks are standing bare and crooked. Here inside this barren marshland the camp is built up, Where we are, far from any joy, stowed away behind barbed wire. Morgens ziehen die Kolonnen in das Moor zur Arbeit hin. Graben bei dem Brand der Sonne, doch zur Heimat steht der Sinn.
In the morning, the columns march towards the moor to work. Manche Brust ein Seufzer dehnet, weil wir hier gefangen sind. Homeward, homeward everyone yearns to the parents, wife and child, some chests are widened by a sigh, because we are caught in here. Up and down the guards are walking Nobody, nobody can get through.
Escape would only cost the life Four fences secure the castle. But for us there is no clamoring, It can't be an endless winter. One day we'll say happily: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 June Retrieved from " https: Articles with French-language external links Articles containing German-language text All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from May Articles with German-language external links. Views Read Edit View history.
In other projects Wikimedia Commons. This page was last edited on 7 September , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Die Moorsoldaten Wohin auch das Auge blicket.